Ex-CBS CEO to lose $120m severance pay over sexual misconduct

Former CBS
CEO Les Moonves will not receive his $120 million severance package following a
sexual misconduct probe, the company’s board of directors announced Monday
evening.

“With regard to Mr. Moonves, we have
determined that there are grounds to terminate for cause, including his willful
and material misfeasance, violation of Company policies and breach of his
employment contract, as well as his willful failure to cooperate fully with the
Company’s investigation,” the board said in a statement.

The media executive resigned from his role at the
company in September after a dozen women came forward alleging sexual
misconduct. Moonves has denied the accusations of nonconsensual sexual
relations.

CBS shares were up slightly in extended trade. The
stock has fallen sharply this year, declining nearly 20 percent since the start
of 2018.

A version of the report prepared for the CBS board
said that Moonves destroyed evidence and misled investigators, The New York
Times reported earlier this month. The lawyers wrote
that they found Moonves to be “evasive and untruthful at times and to have
deliberately lied about and minimized the extent of his sexual
misconduct.”

Andrew Levander, Moonves’s attorney, told the
Times that Moonves “cooperated extensively and fully with
investigators.”

Activist groups immediately praised the board’s decision.

“CBS has heard our call! No golden parachute
for Moonves,” the National Organization for Women’s New York chapter wrote
on Twitter. The group protested against Moonves’s severance package last week
at CBS’s annual shareholders meeting.

The company said that its inquiry into Moonves,
CBS News and “cultural issues at CBS” did not turn up evidence of
pervasive problems related to harassment and retaliation. But it noted
investigators did uncover incidents of “improper and unprofessional
conduct.”

Given the size of CBS’s business, investigators
concluded that the company was not providing adequate resources to its human
resources department, to training and development, or for diversity and
inclusion initiatives.

The statement said that the company’s
“historical policies, practices and structures have not reflected a high
institutional priority on preventing harassment and retaliation.”

The company said that it had already begun to take
“robust steps” to improve its workplace.

“Among other things, the Company appointed a
new Chief People Officer, is actively engaged in ways to enhance and reimagine
the Human Resources function, and has retained outside expert advisors to
develop other initiatives for promoting a workplace culture of dignity,
transparency, respect and inclusion,” the statement said.